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(9.13.25 BenQQ) Posted by President Trump's advisor Steve Miller on X.com, the image of Ukrainian immigrant Iryna Zarutska's terrifying realization her life is about to end at the hands of a crazed stranger in the seat behind her August 22 while riding Charlotte light rail. That stranger tragically turned out to be Decarlos Brown Jr, 34, who had 14 prior arrests, had suffered from schizophrenia and exhibited troubling public behavior. His mother said that despite his worsening mental state, help was denied. In Jan. this year, Brown was arrested for a misdemeanor and Magistrate Judge Teresa Stokes released him on a written promise to appear in court, instead of requiring a bond, despite his many manifestations of threats to the public. A movement to unseat her from the bench is under way.
(9.13.25 BenQQ)
To hear President Trump tell it, this is how Memphis became the first city after Washington, DC to get National Guard troops to fight crime. Trump describes a conversation with a friend of his visiting him in the White House. The friend, a big executive of a railroad, related the anecdote when he came to Memphis. His hotel put him in an armored car with bullet proof glass to walk one block over fear for his safety.
Perhaps more interestingly, Trump said both the governor and the mayor were “happy” about the troops coming in to fight crime.
Though the mayor and media all report Memphis has seen a reduction in violent crime during the past 6 years, it is still recognized as having the highest murder rate per population. Law and order has broken down in Memphis, judging by the fear of its average citizens.
Yet, the mayor still repeats the bromides of every major blue city mayor that has out of control crime: find the “roots” of the cause of crime and pour more money into long range social solutions. Sounds good but has failed to work after generations of Democratic control.
Even Democrats—and especially rank and file Dems who live in the mean streets of Memphis and hear gunshots almost every night—have had enough. Trump has shown his solution is to place priority on protection of citizens in urban blue cities like Memphis and fight crime directly with armed national guard who have been assigned to do just that. Democrats want all this to be impolitic, but its working for Trump.
There is almost no active verbal attacks on Trump as yet from the local power structure, including politicians, media and activists such as religious leaders and nonprofits. Ill. Gov. JB Pritzker possibly thought he would set the example of Democratic opposition but it has fallen flat so far, at least in Memphis.
Even the city’s blue daily newspaper the Commercial Appeal did not take an active stand against “Trump’s troops” (my term). Instead it carried a tepid “man in the street” story that carried Trump’s declared anti-crime mission in the lead with comments from people that mostly approved, tolerated or supported military personnel with a crime fighting mission.
Speculated: it would appear the Memphis mayor in particular “got the memo” from the business community. In DC it is reported that people are back on the streets, restaurant, business and night life have revived and the people are breathing a sigh of relief from not having to stay home barricaded from criminals.
Young even got praise from Davory Dawkins, a conservative podcaster, who praised the Memphis mayor for not calling for protest demonstrations but expressed how he could use the help in fighting crime.
The Shelby County Mayor was just a little more stringent, saying he was considering legal action to stop Trump from bringing in troops to protect, ironically, his own constituents.
If any politician really wants to show he’s right to keep troops—as opposed to criminals -- from being in full view of citizens, why not have a flash referendum? It would be risky politically, but would at least add credence to political objections if more people agreed.
(9.10.25 4:49 PM CST BenQQ)
What is now being called a political assasination, a gunman today killed Charlie Kirk as he appeared before a large crowd at Utah Valley University (UVU) during an event tied to his “American Comeback Tour.”
A single shot struck Kirk in the neck. Mass panic ensued. Kirk succumbed soon after arriving at Utah Valley Hospital, Provo. President Trump ordered flags lowered half mast until Sunday. Cabinet members expressed full support to authorities in capturing the assassin, who remains at large as of this writing.
Kirk hosted the Charlie Kirk Show on America’svoice.news behind the War Room with Steve Bannon. He also ran Turning Point, an organization of chapters in colleges focusing on conservative values, religion and patriotism across the country.
Turning Point held an event at the University of Memphis last year where local protesters chased the speaker from the venue. Here’s is the video I produced from that event.
(9.7.25 BenQQ) Think tanks and lawyers will argue the meaning of “invasion” until it is finally defined by the Supremes at some future date. Left activist lawyers are now working their way up the judicial tiers to get the Supreme Court to side with them.
The “invasion” I’m talking about is not by a foreign army hurling inbound missiles, but the millions of illegal, unvetted aliens who crossed into our country thanks to the open borders of Biden.
Biden traitorously (my opinion) in effect, working with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, allowed in the massive demographic influx of millions of people with allegiance or simple identity-we don’t know which because no one asked-to their country of origin. Were these human waves “organized” with the object of breaking across US borders?
Biden let in foreign alien nationals with declared hostile objectives to the United States. By any legal immigration standard, they would have never been let in by anyone with open eyes. But who cares. Let the cells mutate across the country. This seemed to be an organized response to Biden’s gold plated invitation writ large with passivity.
But does “organized” have to pertain to a foreign military attack or deep sleep espionage operation? Can an invasion constitute millions crossing the border in organized progressions illegally? Many illegals end up living in geo-enclaves where they speak one language, seldom mix outside their cultural boundaries, draw government funds, stress schools and hospitals and finally get counted in the census to ultimately reward the party that let them in in the first place, the Democrats.
After a few years these pockets of foreign communities change the demographics of a location.(Cast your eyes to London.) Sooner or later they become naturalized by personal choice or Democratic Party fiat. Then comes the third phase of the invasion: they vote for the party that gives them more free stuff from the government and we all know who that is.
Looks like an “organized” system to me.
From the start the MAGA movement was a response to this system. Anti globalism and illegal immigration fed MAGA from the beginning. It got Trump elected.
Before all Americans, Biden’s treacherous immigration policies imported huge foreign tides without consideration to demographic shifts that helped cause decreasing jobs and pay while crime increased. Democrats object to the factuality of these things, but no doubt, Biden and his people created changes that no one voted for.
So Trump’s most recent operation is to throw out those that broke into the country. He is justifying this by calling it an invasion. Democrats' heads are spinning.
Pro Democrat protestors and rioters say Trump is wrong calling the illegal immigrant (they prefer just “immigrant”) influx into the country an “invasion.” The more theoretical of them say an invasion can only be done by a military force.
However, the Constitution does not define “invasion.” Consider:
Article I, Section 8 (War Powers of Congress)
Congress has the power “to provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.”
Article I, Section10 (Limits on states)
States cannot engage in war “unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay.”
Article IV, Section 4 (Guarantee Clause)
“The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion…”
So none of these references say “invasion” has to come from a foreign military. In fact, the last says the government is actually obligated to protect American citizens “against invasion…” Wisely, it seems the framers wanted to stay out of exactly what an invasion is.
However, courts have always maintained that “invasion” means armed hostility from another political entity. However II, lawyers could perhaps argue nations letting out their miscreants or others to overrun the US is exactly that. They can argue that unconstrained populous illegal injection from one country into another is in fact “foreign hostility.”
At any rate, the demonstrators’ tossing up talking points as if reading from the same Democratic memo raises more questions than answers. It illustrates the need for a new interpretation of the word “invasion.”
(9.1.25 BenQQ) If you are wont to compare Biden-Trump job numbers, take a look at these out I pulled from AI. source: Bureau of Labor statistics. I checked the numbers with the primary source (loosely, I’m not even econ 101) online Bureau. So, that said, they are revealing, especially regarding the Democratic naysayers who claimed during the election Trump was going to spin us into nothing short of a depression right before or after he started WWIII.
The numbers don’t look that way according to the stats now. The thing to remember is that there is a baseline on these charts. This is gray in the charts where Biden started, he added/lost jobs in blue. Trump’s numbers start, appropriately, in orange. So at this point we are comparing Biden’s 4 years to Trump’s first seven months of his second term. Trump is already starting to pull away, like a Greyhound at the Southland Greyhound Park in West Memphis, AR, right over the river, as we say. (Though its hard for me to picture Biden as a runner of any kind-except when he memorably skipped staccato on stage.) Anyway, here are the greyhounds...
I did not get into Trump’s first term numbers as the Democrats’ desperate failed cabal to invalidate Trump's administration even though he did pretty well even then. This was an attempted theft of not only Trump but from the Americans who voted for him.
But really, we are comparing more than that. People will watch closely Trump’s America first, trade, manufacturing imports, war on crime, moving education to the states and even ICE removing illegal alien residential reduction that some say will have effect on jobs, to see if more jobs are created over Biden’s globalist policies. The academics will have a heyday.
At any rate, the Democrats seem to be stuck on sacrificing their party’s interest to the country’s. They have shown themselves to support nothing of the Trump agenda that benefits their members. Hence, the recent loss of millions of Democrats to the Republicans.
Photo Rounding the Bend
Respond on X.
FoxNewsAP News reports Illinois Gov J.B. Pritzker declared he “will not stand idly by” if Trump deploys the National Guard to Chicago. One wonders exactly what he means by that. The blowhard bravado from an old line Democrat uttered to influence his local minions is not unexpected. Like most Democratic politicians, Pritzker is trying to create a new social movement against Trump, using militant language against a president who has declared a war on crime. Deep blue Chicago is riven with crime and everybody knows it. Yet, Pritzker expects Democrats to rise up against Trump for, ironically, protecting Democrats against violent criminals. This, while Democrat policies have aided criminals with no bail and no/lower sentencing, allowed in millions of unvetted illegal aliens, and actively fight ICE against deporting illegal aliens with bad records.
At first Trump said he would double the number--600,000+--of Chinese students allowed into the US to “study.” With numerous anti-Chinese entities from newspapers like The Epoch Times and activists on the MAGA side like Gordon G. Chang, author of The Coming Collapse of China warning of numerous CCP legal and diplomatic transgressions, Trump seemed intent on letting in hundreds of thousands Chinese students into American universities. He apparently has changed that. Perhaps someone clued him in on the Chinese Communist Party practice of ersatz espionage that is expected of students and businesses alike. We think Trump is clearly too easily influenced by flattery, titles and other powerful players around the world about whom he is too quick too declare personal friendship. The protective stopgap here is his America first operational dictum. Link.
Americans must remain vigilant, says CA Gov. Gavin Newsom, about a scary Trump term in a supportive interview in a sympathetic platform, Politico. Rather, we think what Americans should be vigilant about, is a governor who has presided over the highest taxes, crime, faltering education, homelessness, illegal immigrants than most other states. Link
None other than Al Jazeera ABC News is reporting mass resignations after Trump ousted CDC Director Susan Monarez who was allegedly directed by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy to align with unscientific directives. Monarez’s lawyers say she refuses to resign, framing her dismissal as politically motivated. And to that we say: so? The Biden administration under another decrepit leader repeatedly mouthed “follow the science” (sic) that unnecessarily set back school children and the economy. And, of course, we are so upset over resignations of federal workers.
Trump accused billionaire philanthropist George Soros and his son Alex of funding violent protests and urged federal RICO prosecution. Elon Musk publicly backed the idea. From The Times of India
The New York Post is reporting that on August 27 Trump met with son-in-law Jared Kushner and former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair at the White House to discuss Gaza. Among the topics of consideration was a proposal to turn Gaza into a “freedom zone” or “Riviera of the Middle East.” Other topics included hostage negotiations, humanitarian aid and reconstruction. On Oct. 7, 2023 organized Gazan terrorists invaded Israel. That force murdered 695 people of whom 36 were children. The documented physical abuses/torture methods the Gazans perpetrated on Israelis include: executions at close range, victims bound and burned, mutilation of bodies, sexual violence (including rape/gang rape. Then the Gazan savages took 251 hostages. Less than50 now remain. Media report about 20 remain alive. Gazans are still withholding bodies and reportedly are starving hostages.
(8.27.25 BenQQ) Here’s a question a new study from the University of North Texas raises about empathy from conservatives toward minorities: is empathy an endless accommodation, a constant catering to and nodding approval of minority complaints? Critics of the study say why can’t empathy be a devotion to responsibility, self-reliance, individualism and fairness applied equally?
That study claims conservative voters are wired with less empathy, especially toward minorities or politically opposed groups. Researchers tied the findings to personality traits like social dominance orientation and right-wing authoritarianism. These traits are why conservatives are less supportive of progressive social causes, they say.
Perhaps conservatives don’t fall over themselves in support of trending progressive social issues is because those issues don’t amount to much when society has moved beyond the civil rights struggles as well as those superficial media generated issues of other groups such as gays, immigrants and various gender identifications.
A few years ago "systemic racism" was all the progressive rage. The city of Memphis actually declared it would assist anyone coming forth who believed they had been victimized by this apparent widespread social malady. No one showed up in the news claiming he or she had been a victim.
Making mass victims is essential modern polemical progressives. However, victimization doesn't stick well on their issues. For example, the Black Lives Matter movement quickly dissolved into corruption and irrelevance. Woke movements from corporate makeovers to gender misapplication in women’s sports to abuse of pronouns have all fallen in short course. The Democratic Party still holds on to the notion that minorities remain socially and racially persecuted in the most free and opportunity rich country on earth. Yet, millions are “walking away” from the Democrats as never before.
Therefore, many believe the Democrats have declared illegal immigrants and various criminal elements such as Mexican cartel members to be victims of unjust persecution because they allegedly were denied due process. Judging by their pressers and speeches Democrats seem to want their members to agree that such criminals who are preying on their own communities to jump into some sort of mission to keep them there. It is blowing up in their faces.
Critics say the study reflects more about academia’s biases than about conservative values. For example, a few years ago a woman academic from the north spent a summer in Louisiana. She admitted she was completely surprised that white Southerners were not like the impressions she held before visiting: they were actually warmly welcomed her and were nice to minorities and everyone else. Southerners were surprised she was surprised.
By defining empathy narrowly through progressive lenses, the study paints half the country as less caring because most Americans do not prioritize left-wing social agendas. However, the empathy and related values conservatives do show is for family, non-intrusive government, independence, faith communities, veterans, and law-abiding citizens—that is, core cultural priorities that are by definition conservative.
Cracker Barrel Reverses Logo Change After Backlash In what was fast becoming another woke corporate PR disaster of another company signaling it really didn't like its traditional customer base, Cracker Barrel decided to keep its iconic “Old Timer” logo following strong reactions from customers and conservative figures—including Trump—who criticized the rebranding as too modern and dismissive of tradition. Customer response came fast and hard after the company announced the logo change Aug. 26.
The company has five locations in the MidSouth.
No doubt staffers who cannot express their wokeness other than forcing their employer to bend to their perceptions of modern culture, are disappointed. Putting a plug in the image bleed, the company finally said it appreciated its customer feedback and cultural attachment to its legacy logo and would keep it.
Or does the Cracker Barrel logo disaster bode ill for companies with art reflective of bygone eras like Aunt Jemima (which changed to Pearl Milling) and Uncle Ben (which changed to Ben's Original? And why is an old white guy in a rocking chair so offensive anyway? Clearly the Cracker Barrel customers have not attrited enough so that woke staffers can say their company has caught up with Bud Lite.
(8.19.25 by Ben 'BenQQ' Harrison) So I check my email last night and see the "news" that Memphis leads the nation in homicides per population.
I watch a lot of news shows on the internet and in regular broadcast. I've notice that Memphis now is mentioned, casually enough as if its a symbol of Democrat cities failing in controlling their crime, in the media. Such media coverage started recently when FBI Director Kash Patel pointed Memphis out as particularly crime ridden. Then he said FBI resources would be dispatched to the city which should have resulted in local ringing endorsement. Perhaps I missed it.
One day later after that hit in boxes, none other than the Gray Dem Lady, the New York Times, reported Democrats had hemorrhaged millions of voting members over issues that most "average" (my term) Americans disagree--like the injection of illegal aliens into the American population, crime, the downward trend of education, weird gender intrusion into women's sports, etc.
Some say the Democratic Party is in a death spiral from which recovering is impossible. Not to mention the impact on Democrat leaning media like our own daily newspaper the Commercial Appeal that seems to have abandoned covering Trump at all.
We Memphians are used to seeing the staged poli-walks of politicians and department directors all lining up behind a city leader to declare actions against criminals when somebody did something bad, meaning heinous. (An opposite corollary to this staged drama are the perp-walks of accused criminals upon capture.)
All this raises a couple of questions: first, would Democrats in Memphis forgo membership to their governing party that seems indifferent to violent predatory crime to white and black alike?
Second, the followup question related: if there is a "local Trump" who would apply traditional obvious solutions to crime and the other issues Trump has addressed, would Democrats bail their party for his or her solutions?
(8.12.25 BenQQ) Unbelievable that it has come to this in America. However, it’s time to raise the question.
With “Democratic Socialists”—a term representing just one step away from formal communism if you’ve read Marx--perhaps its time for states like Tennessee to mount a business “refugee” program for those who will either soon leave or be driven out of states like New York and California. If "socialist" Mamdani wins as mayor of New York, expect other Democratic Party tycoons to partake of his juicy mass appeal tactics.
At this point, it doesn’t much matter if a city--or entire state--actually votes to go this way. Traditional Democrats will remain much the same to vote again along the same Marxist vein. Its all easy Democratic agitprop: tax supported free stuff, cheap goods and more benefits to even illegals. This has to make business owners, executives and everybody who appreciates a free market system to look for a better way.
If voters want to swing communist to the detriment of businesses and tax payers, therefore employment and welfare, of its citizens, that’s their choice. It will take years, if ever, for them to recoup the damage. Democratic Party propaganda is sure to beat the drums of how they brought “democracy” back to their communities by establishing state owned businesses and taxing remaining businesses into history.
Tennessee should welcome those 'refugee' businesses with an official program that helps them get set up in the state. The state should do so with strong programs as if it has competition from from other states like Florida.
No state has yet actually launched a “commie escape plan” for businesses where Democrats swing their states to this long discredited economic system. Will it be a surprise if Tennessee or another state does?
Will Tennessee be the first?
(6.29.25 BenQQ) A Tesla automobile drives itself to a customer. That raises the question of the nationwide "Tesla Takedown" 3 months ago. Though two demonstrations was slated in Memphis, no one showed up for either. This is a video of the "Tesla Terrors" and the car driving itself as captured from the interior. A 4 minute video edit by BenQQ. You decide who came out on top.
(6.28.25 BenQQ) No doubt you saw some of the “mostly peaceful” anti-Ice-Trump riots in various cities, you saw the various loosely united factions from the rarely articulate opponents of Trump’s immigration policy to chanting rock throwing gangs that could only be described as the “enemy within” at least by conservative observers.
My theme here: there’s a use for every type of fellow traveler or useful idiot in a crowd. Because the left has made it an emotional issue, plenty come out of the woodwork of old socialist haunts that had been put into their graves long ago. Or so we thought.
Now we see acting out before our televised eyes: a standard revolutionary tactic wherever the Reds got a foothold. First, latch on to a cause you could distort politically—like government agents enforcing emigration law—then whip up passions from various levels from foreign nationals to partisan political opponents to simple nutters.
So now more than previously noticed in Trump's first terms, these demonstrations include the overt support of illegal foreign nationals on American soil. We saw apparent Americans as well as Mexicans, Guatemalans and Palestinians, waving their flags and burning ours.
These are people who claim that illegal border crossing is not a real crime. Add in these ingredients: incessant polemical support from the Democratic party, its media and organizations that think the CCP can be a moral authority as if its not a genocidal communist dictatorship. Then stir this political mix into a violent model in other Democrat cities and you have the stew for a coming civil war. But don’t believe just me. I'm nobody. Believe the experts who are predicting civil war.
Professor David Betts, who studies civil wars, says there's a good chance Britain would be in one in 5 years. I site Betts here as a comparative source. His focus is in Europe. It seems to me there are comparisons to what’s happening right now in America. Another strife predictor is Ray Dalio. Both Betts and Dalio, at least to me, operate on a statistical-historical-social model. More on them later with links.
Based on what we see on videos of people actually reporting from these events, the Anti-Trump and No Kings events are cosplays of old newsreels of anti-social communist street gangs of past revolutions. Mindless chants, obscenities and violence. It is entirely groupthink.
This summer this is likely to erupt, like a rash on a humid summer day, in city after city. It will lead to mass violence much like their obvious model, the BLM riots of 2020. Their aim is the the undemocratic overthrow of the democratically elected MAGA agenda by any means necessary. The means always justify the ends.
So you did watch the "No Kings" riots of about 3 weeks ago. I suspect many if not most regular Democrats watched gape mouthed. They, the rank and file who remember their party as liberal and not progressive now see things have changed. Traditionally, these Dem stalwarts pretty much went along with what the party big dogs told them.
Now a step beyond even that is New York City Democratic primary win of young socialist Zohran Mamdani. He, if elected, is guaranteed to drive businesses and taxpayers out of the city even more than previous Democratic administrations.
So the question is: will other blue cities follow New York City? Will other Bolshevist styled orators pop up in other cities to espouse government food distribution replacing grocery stores? Rent freezes? $30 minimum wage and more too numerous to get into here. The political pitch is instantly appealing to those Democrats we've seen recently in the streets, as well as in many of their other places of recruitment like colleges, unions, government workers and liberals who can be turned ever further.
But here's something new in Democratic riots and rhetoric: declarations of foreign allegiance, otherwise known as insurrection. Not seen in Democratic media coverage were the claims by many of the rioters/demonstrators that parts of the U.S. really “belonged” to Mexico. That’s why Mexican border crossers really didn’t have to recognize any immigration laws, you see. So, its OK to take over a part of the country. Get enough people in, get Democrats to fast track citizenship and Texas, California and Arizona is theirs again. It's a fast track to balkanization, that is, the control of a local area hostile to the laws of the state. Some say that has already started.
This Mexican nativist rhetoric spawns from the “Reconquista” movement. This goes back to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, ending the Mexican American War. At least among the rioters, the Reconquista movement is worth harkening unto. Video coming soon.
So little wonder that the Democrat bigwigs continue to soft pedal the riots as mostly peaceful, support the rioters and refuse to see, let alone condemn, what really went on. Why didn’t they? Perhaps the answer is rioters are their noisiest constituents.
Once rank and file Democrats see they are being foisted into a league with a foreign movement, more will flock from the party. Once they see there is a direct line between their political rhetoric, the recent and coming riots and communist style reforms in blue cities, more will see their party is not good for their country nor their kids.
6/7/25 BemQQ) The televised display this weekend of violent insurrectionists attacking federal agents in the process of taking into custody non-citizen criminals should be imbedded in the minds of each American. This is a precursor to another famous summer of love brought do you again by the Democrats, the highest levels of which have yet to express disagreement with their brethren in the streets.
All this while the Mexican government does little to quell the violence flooding over the border, encourages its massive border crossing population to send over 100 billion since 2024 back to Mexico in remittances, sues American gun companies for its own violent cartels that have set up shop in all major American cities (including Memphis), has profited immensely from not only from trade deficits, but as well from illegal immigration and drug trafficking.
So average Americans get up Saturday morning and see Mexican flags being waved among rioters attacking and blockading federal buildings. This is a slice of life portrait of a one party left leaning state. It is California, though it was organized simultaneously in other cities as well. A lingering question outside this piece: who organized it? Who provided the Mexican flags to the demonstrators? Did they all run to a local flag store?
The Democrat herd of sheep has trapped themselves into a corner the escape from which is blocked by their own pigs and bulls. Democrat elites have a well covered history of commiserating with criminals and excusing mass lawbreaking by altering language itself. (Democrats, especially their media, never use “illegal aliens,” but always glibly use the simple term “migrants” as if they are 1930 Okies making their way into California.)
One difference from Okies: illegal migrants are soaking up resources and jobs that Democrats generously hand to them at the expense of real tax payers. Undoubtedly, many see all this as a Democrat plan to brazenly buy eventually naturalized voter loyalty with OPM (other peoples’ money). It is the ultimate offense because few if any taxpayers would ever agree to let in millions of unvetted foreigners, the Democratic support of which would again increase taxes on them and their children, all the while reducing services to American citizens.
It is, in a word, insane. However, the Democrats are hanging their hat on this gambit, hoping to turn up their fight for illegal and even violent immigrants into another civil rights struggle. As the fight to get the illegals out of the country goes on, images and Democratic propaganda media will spread messages from Democratic leaders. Further, they know, it is impossible for ICE to send back any number close to the estimated 12-20 million Biden allowed in.
Democrats are thinking if they can only win in the mid-term and general election, millions of illegals will have evaded deportation due to likely deportation stoppage.
Then these ex-illegals will be reminded who effectively invited them in and who paid their way thereafter—Democrats. The average American taxpayer assuredly will not be credited.
The immediate upshot of Democratic usurpation of the immigration process is a permanent one party far left state for America.
Democrats don’t seem to think about ICE and DHS that also have apprehended military age males from enemy and antagonist countries. Neither are they thinking about how the average American voter will see these riots literally in favor of criminals and supported by Democratic officials hard pressed that proved themselves incompetent even to fight the fires in Pacific Palisades.
Meanwhile, they are rolling out their mouthpieces of AOC-Omar/Tlaib-Crockett before American voters as if they are the answer.
Democrats are destined to lose numbers even among themselves as more Americans come to realize they must be kept from office.
(6.3.25 BenQQ) Despite President Trump recently declaring to the face of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that he “had no cards” to play against Vladimir Putin, the Russian dictator, who has murdered and wrecked the Ukrainian nation from sheer land greed, Ukraine pulled off two stunning victories in the past few days. It seems there indeed are cards left in the deck of people fighting for their survival.
Two days ago, news surfaced that Ukraine had irreparably damaged Russia’s irreplaceable strategic bomber force. It crippled Russia’s triad that also included damaging a nuclear submarine in the Arctic. (“Triad” refers to land, water and air delivery systems of nuclear weapons.)
Then this news happened this morning: Ukraine struck the Crimea Bridge at underwater depth causing severe damage. The Crimea Bridge is the main artery that allows supply of war materials to Russian forces in Ukraine.
Ukraine is on a roll. Russia is on their backfoot, as frequently is the case with top heavy dictatorships bent on regional domination.
Just like these successful blows have caused the old Russian Kremlin to begin hysterical finger pointing of blame, much the same can be said of MAGA theoreticians. Two days ago War Room host Steve Bannon said an investigation was warranted because these Ukrainian actions could not have been taken without the help of the United States. Was he insinuating a military cabal against Trump?
Regardless, now is the time for Trump to snap out of his delusions about the Ukraine-Russian War. Putin has played him like...like a comic caricature who bumbled himself into the most powerful job in the world. Observers on the Ukrainian side think Putin and his fellow thugs manipulate Trump like a predictable gullible idiot.
Even though Trump is surrounded by MAGA enthusiasts who tend toward isolationism, someone has got to be counseling him on what Russia has done: that is, checkmate herself or at least put her on a terminal timeline for the war. That’s bad news for Putin. Even just to stay alive, he’s got to keep the war going to a point where he can declare victory to his people. But how can he...? With recent Ukraine strikes, this has been the most costly since WWll.
As the single cause, Putin now has to deal with all of his war complications: a million men wasted as casualties, a growing anti-war population in addition to those whom the government has already disappeared, an economy that is ailing thanks to sanctions, military manufacturing that is crippled with the loss of almost all of her tanks, not to mention the damage done to her bomber and naval fleet—and at some point Russia will have to start grabbing as yet untouched young men of party families off Moscow and Saint Petersburg streets once she runs out of ethnic blood in outlying states.
Instead of strutting around claiming he is the global king negotiator, now is the time for Trump to wake up and pull the remaining oil profit resources from under Putin’s KGB feet. This will starve, in time, Putin’s war bank.
Trump should not abandon Ukraine. He should continue to supply the services and hardware that only we can and force NATO to unite with massive new resources against Russian forces.
One more thing: Just as Russia watched Biden re their old Soviet empire, China is watching Trump re her Taiwanese and Asian sphere.
(5.26.25 BenQQ) Some commenters compared this episode with the appalling meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy. It wasn’t even close. If Trump wanted to use video with Zelenskyy, he could have thrown up moving images of women and children being murdered by Putin’s missiles, Russians kidnapping children Hitlerian style and a peaceful country being murdered and decimated by a brutal dictatorship that is now veering toward toppling. Instead Trump famous blurted “You don’t have the cards,” like some sort of street thug. Many people who understand Russia know Putin aims to reconstitute the old Soviet Union. Such American people found Trump’s behavior unnecessary and embarrassing. And this writer is a Trump supporter.
Now let’s jump to the meeting with avuncular Ramaphosa. Like Zelenskyy, he wanted things, in this case a reset with the United States. Trump, always the CEO more than anything in these situations, holds out for a deal. They have a private meeting. Apparently there, the meeting was more affable with the two leaders discussed trade, agriculture, and economic investment, though what company would want to invest in a country where masses dance to the killing of the people that grow their food?
Trump veritably ambushed Ramaphosa and his staff to watch a video of a "Kill the Boer" (my term) rally. Trump's video also showed cars lining up along a road where white crosses had been set up. Trump said these were commemorations of murdered white farmers. Ramaphosa said he had not seen this. Afterwards, white professional S. African golfers commented in support of Ramaphosa's visit. Regardless, it was perhaps the most awkward moment, short of Zelenskyy, created by Trump to put a government on the defensive prior to a private meeting.
Surprisingly then, Trump apparently made no demands for protection of the farmers nor the prosecution of the leading death dance master Julius Malema, leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). In such huge meetings, he leads his crowds in “Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer,” a genocidal diddy if there ever was one. However, Trump’s calling the killing of farmers a “genocide” was criticized for being technically incorrect. Trump’s critics were right if numbers count for anything.
At any rate, over 1,000 white farmers have been murdered since 1990, based on data from the Transvaal Agricultural Union of South Africa (TAU SA), though these incidents are said by government authorities to be based on broader criminal activities. Granted, it is said to bad everywhere in S. Africa. In 2024, there were 32 farm murders, or 1% of South Africa’s homicides, which mostly hit poor black men in urban areas.
Boer farmers make up an estimated 4% of the 2.7 million total population of S. Africa. Further, white farmers, who make up about 8% of the population, own72% of private farmland. Whites make up about 7.3%, 4.5 million of the country’s total 62 million.
Malema’s apparently popular messaging hits a level of genocidal intention directed toward one set of people, a set that makes up only 7.5% of the population. (By comparison, the Jews in Germany at the time of the Holocaust were less than 1% of the population.) Typical of genocidal maniacs, Malema’s rhetoric reveals the same level of propaganda and scapegoating used by the Germans against populations that wield too little political influence to protect them.
In spite of the these demographics festering in a hotbed of racial and political hatred, American Democrats still chose to land on the side of Malema with reasoning as flimsy as that used in their defense of gang members who already had been deported. They were upset when Trump allowed in 59 white S. Africans. This was pursuant to a Feb. 25 executive order that prioritized the resettlement of Afrikaners citing racial persecution. However, S. African emigrants generally also site government land expropriation without compensation, a declining economy in addition to high risk of violent crime.
Here’s what Democrats should do instead of once again falling on the wrong side of the American people: welcome them as a genuinely threatened group which can benefit all of the American landscape with their legal emigration. This would go far in rebuilding race relations in this country without falling back on blowhard Democrats seeking any issue to exploit in the wake of Trump's ongoing success.
(5.22.25 BenQQ) While one may be bemused as a quaint throwback, why are a some Memphians still walking around all masked up?
Have their doctors recommended they continue to wear a mask due to a certain condition? Or maybe as a precaution against the common cold or flu?
Have they decided that masks block all microbes and not just Covid floating around everywhere? Cloth and paper masks, the kind you see people still wearing, have low filtration and are not fit for high risk protection. In fact no masks block out everything, though some surgical respirators can filtrate 95% and can cost up to $60.
Most people were glad to lose their masks after the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said it was OK not to wear them. In fact, it was questionable whether masks protected the wearer at all. Some say masks actually did more harm than good.
The anti-Covid campaign started in the first Trump administration. Nobody knew what to expect. Some say the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) purposely launched the virus into the West to get Trump. Trump has made some noise that the CCP is going to pay.
But in 2020 when the Democrats mounted a frenzied ill thought campaign to mask up everybody, shut down commerce, education, churches and social traditions, people at first fell in but soon rebelled when it became apparent this wasn't the way to go to fight the disease. Even early on some experts expressed doubt. Why were kids being made to wear masks when they were the least impacted population?
In February 2022, after the Delta Variant surge, the CDC revised its mask policy the second time and said it was OK not to wear them in most indoor settings depending on local transmission levels.
So why do you see people still wearing masks?
Is it a health precaution or a nostalgic nod to a time not too far long ago when Democrats were in total control? In politics, people nostalgically romanticize the strangest things. Today even many Russians and Chinese romanticize Stalin and Mao.
Is something similar going on with today's mask wearers?
(5.19.25 BenQQ) We must know also that his handlers knew about it months, if not years, in advance. Steve Bannon said this morning this was a scandal as big as Watergate by 10x. When I first heard about it yesterday I started writing this article with the angle Biden’s health was withheld from the American people when they (his handlers) knew he would not be able to complete his second term. Then Vice President Kamala Harris would step in to continue her own non compos mentis administration.
The news that Biden has prostate cancer, a slow disease that can be spotted well in advance in average men. However, for a president, who benefits from several checkups annually with the highest medical technology, such a condition can be spotted years before it manifests in cancer cells—say experts. However, Biden's cancer was so advanced it had even spread to his bones, reports say, in which case handlers had to have known about it well in advance before they had to acknowledge it publicly. Critics are claiming Biden’s handlers all knew and could see he had been in decline for years.
Further, he had been using the now infamous Autopen signing machine on official business. (I wrote about that then.) A question assuredly to surface: did his cancer make him even more unaware of daily responsibilities? Was he aware of his staff running through his signatures? If this gets to a point of proving incompetence, will Trump seek to invalidate Biden's term?
Biden’s health always was a major issue during his presidency as made apparent by his physical infirmity as well as his inability at times to form sentences, stay awake or be confused as to the mission at hand. The American people, fair to the point of gullibility, knew it too.
Get ready for the Democrats to act like this is such big news. And they had better do some world class acting.
Now, we have another scandal that’s right up there with the alleged: stolen election, the family pay-for-play schemes run by erstwhile bagman Hunter Biden, the weaponization of the government and incompetence on the immigration, energy, economy and defense fronts.
When it was painfully obvious to everybody Biden was embarrassing himself and the country, his handlers—his wife and a few others—kept the conversation from surfacing to a crisis point in the media. With the help of old media, they kept it relatively quiet from their traditional party members. With luck, they could have held onto power and kept it all under wraps until Harris stepped in.
Then nobody would ever find out just how much Biden damaged American's electoral and judicial processes.
With this news, expect new investigations to take off with proposed jail terms for those who hid the president’s condition from the American people.
One possible silver lining in this: more men will be motivated to get their PSA checked and eventually have colonoscopies. In this sense, Democrats can claim Biden may have saved millions of lives.
(5.18.25 BenQQ) FBI Director Kash Pattel in an interview with Fox News Maria Bartiromo said this morning something every Memphian and elected official should take note of: there will be an increase in FBI staff sent to Memphis to work with local law enforcement to squelch the devastating rate of homicides in the city. Our question is: will the city work with them?
Pattel this is part of a national effort to spread FBI personnel to problem cities. Pattel made no mention if city officials had requested it previously.
Despite news conferences and announcements touting the city is closing down high crime business locations, Memphis continues to have a reputation of another blue city where rampant crime has taken over everything—from “minor” crimes like yard theft and dog snatching to burglary and murder. Making it all worse is the recent Tyre Nichols case where there will be an expected multi-million lawsuit against the city stemming from that MPD beating death.
Question: will Memphis become like a city in South Africa where residents have taken up radical home defense measures against roving gangs. South Africa also is where President Trump saved dozens of white South African farmers by bringing them into the country. With little protection from the government, many South African farmers have been murdered.
Some Democrats opposed Trump's importing these South African migrants.
(5.16.25 BenQQ) Former Obama FBI director James Comey said he discovered an arrangement of stones forming the message “86 47” while walking on a beach. Apparently he took the picture below and posted it in social media because it was “interesting.” The image reportedly has since been removed from that account.
Once the media discovered Comey's post and raised the issue if 86 meant assassination, it instantly was too late for the FBI Super Cop so he claimed he was not advocating violence toward the current president and in fact did not know what “86” meant.
Of course that beggars belief, in the same way his political investigation of Trump ‘colluding’ with the Russians and Hillary Clinton’s stashing her private servers with top secret information that was only "extremely careless," but not criminally negligent do.
An FBI agent that has no notion of jargon like “86” in popular American culture? Can anyone get a job at Obama's FBI?
Once critics latched onto the idea that 86 could mean assassinate, it blew up in the media. However, no such linkage appears in Oxford or Merriam Webster. In those language dictionaries 86 means to get rid of, throw out, cancel, bar, etc.
The closest definition to killing or assassinating shows up in military codes appearing in the Korean War when an F-86 fighter jet was ‘shot down or discarded.’
And multiple contexts of the term in different category uses creates the rub. So in politics, can 86 mean assassinate when referring to apolitical leader? Maybe, depending on the intentions of the user. And if enough radical Democrats cue into the same coded meaning, can it become common knowledge? Certainly Democrats have used language that portrays Trump as Hitler and therefore perhaps assassinating a Hitler might save the world a lot of trouble.
Considering the past assassination attempts on the president and that members of the intelligence establishment during the Obama regime publicly said they had all sorts of ways of reaching opponents with ease, Comey’s claimed ignorance of the term is baffling.
Let the investigation into Comey dig into the possible political meanings of 86. It may be not so deep code for the unthinkable.
(5.15.25 BenQQ) Given the fact you are unlikely to read or see anything about Trump in legacy media, it is worthwhile for every news consumer to consider the other side:
Had people not voted for Donald Trump, certainly we would have continued to see Biden’s destruction of the border where untold millions of unvetted migrants invaded America where they would further flood labor markets, bleed billions of dollars from federal to local governments for education, health and social benefits. This while our defense posture decreased as crime increased. In other words, an historic mess brought on by easily manipulated voters. And that's not all...
In short order, Democrats would conjure a one-party voting block that would forever put America in third world standards. Is this what rank and file Democrats want for their children? No single president, his party and family have done more to damage his country than Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. While Trump doesn’t seem interested in bringing Biden to justice, hopefully Congress will.
While certainly rising to criminal investigation, the many malfeasances of the Biden administration, among which was a Lynne Cheney kangaroo court to “investigate” Jan. 06 as well as an assortment of twisted lawfare and getting Trump out of the political process in anyway possible. In what ways? Multiple impeachments, made-up criminal charges, legal attacks on his working supporters, and even assassination attempts by the more extreme consumers of their radical anti-Trump propaganda.
Their attacks have failed miserably. Democrats are in shambles.
Trump long ago committed to creating policies for working people, not Wall Street mavens, ensconced backslapping politicians who didn’t want or couldn’t find real jobs anywhere else.
Trump’s policies are geared toward correction of long standing and unfair tariffs, becoming independent of corporate globalists and making decisions on the side of working families. In sum, such policies lower taxes, increase wealth that generates more jobs and higher pay as Trump showed in his first term. And all this undermines the deep state, which undermines your will in the democratic process, while helping to protect the election process from fraud and abuse.
Oh, and then there’s DOGE. Yes, that too.
(5.14.25 BenQQ). As Trump turns the Middle East toward peace, there will be little acknowledgement from blue city media. Such media has plied a constant diet for the past eight years of either ignoring or bending over backwards to be negative about Trump personally or politically, regardless the facts of the story. They continue to break professional journalistic standards of fair play and accurate coverage.
Consider: As of yesterday, Trump today has been in the Middle East laying what will be hopefully a foundation of commercial activity and improved positioning with these countries. What's more, businesses are lining up to do deals with America.
(Perhaps its good to remember last month a CCP secret leaked document outlined a program to alienate United States' allies from from her traditional friends. More on that soon.)
Not surprisingly, there are few Democrats with statesman bona fides to join the president in his endeavors. Modern Democrats in defeat have become a cult club of automatons ready to repeat whatever comes down from on high. Likewise with national liberal media there is reluctant coverage and tendentious criticism but with local media of the same ilk, Trump’s Middle East initiative simply didn’t happen.
In the Memphis Commercial Appeal, no story anywhere of Trump's Middle East mission but there was one on his Chinese tariffs that was what you'd expect from the Commercial Appeal/USA Today partnership. The story apparently is accurate, but it gave no acknowledgement to Trump's objectives with tariffs.
Just before Trump’s Middle East initiative, Trump announced his drug policy to get prices in compliance with other countries, somewhat like his goals with tariffs. The CA does have a story on Trump’s drug initiative to lower drug prices by what he says will be 59% to 80%, numbers that are included deep into the story.
Given the fact the headline asks the question “How could it impact Tennessee?” these numbers should have been in the lead. Instead the reader has to read down to the 7th paragraph. More Commercial Appeal/USA Today coverage.
In fact, few times does Trump get coverage of what would be normally acceptable regarding an active president. That's even worse than creating a negative slant. Its ghosting and should never be acceptable, especially with a news organization.
The CA can defend itself by waving its local journalism emphasis, but many if not the overwhelming majority of its readers voted for Biden, then Harris. I argue the CA had and still has a duty to correct the deficit of news and information (N&I) specifically among its readers about these two candidates.
It makes me wonder why anyone right or left should pay for a subscription. For political N&I you either 1) already agree with it 2) or you know it won’t be covered anyway.
On the other hand, if the CA actually devoted any front page fair coverage to Trump, regardless its perpetual negative slant, I submit it would be a more informative and entertaining paper and their subscriptions just might increase. The Commercial Appeal needs to expand its style and content of Trump coverage. They've got 3+ years of Trump politics and trolling that would give them more to write about than local sports.
(5.10.25 BenQQ) It was an ugly piece of news, the bolus of which melded into the minds of everybody who saw the video of the merciless attack one Tyre Nicholls received from what looked like a uniformed gang of city employees.
This is the last thing Memphis needed, even though the story barely broke the larger news surface in the wake of that of the new Pope which absorbed almost constant attention by both legacy and internet media. So much for news competition.
To a lesser extent another factor that quelled media attention was this was not the usual sensational race media story: all defendants were black and the victim was black. Finally, Two other officers—the ones who actually laid hands, boots and batons on Tyre—had plead out in their cases.
It was a sense of unreality when I read the not guilty jury verdicts on the internet Thursday of the three Memphis Police Officers accused of murder two and a number of lesser offenses in the beating death of Tyre Nichols, a young black man who had been stopped allegedly for a traffic violation by members of the Scorpion Division of the Memphis Police Department at about 9 pm in Hickory Hills, a high crime section of Memphis, on a Saturday night, Jan. 2017.
The not guilty verdicts of all charges came down after only eight hours of deliberation. The jury had been asked to make these remaining defendants guilty of not only second degree murder, but lesser offenses, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping and official misconduct.
As District Attorney Steve Mulroy—a DA in a predominantly black city--said, these defendants should be held at a higher standard within their professions of police and fire protection.
Sure, none of the Memphis fire or police people lifted a finger to intervene, even though their own codes require intervention in that situation. That code is much the same with American armed forces and police forces throughout the this county. You do not owe allegiance to your agency but to the law.
Apparently, the jury didn’t see it that way. It was a decision that favored lower end police and fire workers who did not actively participate in the mayhem or indifference imposed on Tyre.
I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop with more background: Tyre was really a gang member on a drug run, had a rap sheet of numerous offenses, was some kind of community activist raging irrationally against the police.
Nope, none of that bubbled up, though the defense made a stab at it, from what I could see on trial video.
The Jury, all drawn from Chattanooga that was immediately branded by a BLM rouser in a post verdict Memphis news conference, as racist and ‘redneck.’ The redneck term struck me as odd. Growing up partially in Mississippi, I always thought that term applied to people who worked from sunup to sundown behind a mule. (Seems many black people could relate to that in their past family.)
This terrible incident is rife for book contents because there are so many unanswered questions.
Can the MPD create and manage the proper culture within its ranks that would both reject bad applicants and eliminate those already there? I presume they’ve tried. Do they have shrinks to weed out people who could lose control as did one of the defendants who plead out said he did for accidentally spraying himself instead of Tyre with pepper spray.
How is it that at least a half dozen police and fire officers did nothing to stop the beating upon arrival? How come not one intervened?
Something is operationally wrong within the Memphis Police and Fire Departments. Or was the Tyre Nichols affair, just a fluke? Activists say not without justification that this was just was one of many, but unlike most, this one got out of hand. Until they do something to show they've change their cultures, people will, unfairly or not, ask can police and fire be trusted in a pinch?
If DOGE is uncovering billions in waste, fraud and abuse, which by now is indisputable, wouldn’t it make sense to have states andcities to set up similar DOGE operations? Several states have already set up their own DOGE operations.
Local DOGEs would not be so much about waste, fraud and abuse, but more about efficiency. Elon Musk, the genius internet, space and neuro entrepreneur has demonstrated the model of how to go about unearthing where taxpayer money is getting flushed-but only on the federal level. But what about the local?
Blue cities like Memphis are not very likely to get behind a local DOGE for a variety of reasons, the most obvious one Democrat politicians apparently are not interested in saving taxpayer money.
Local economies can collapse just like the national one. They can saddle generations to come with bad culture, crime and little opportunity as well. Locals have been shown a way to avoid this. They should do it.
(3.22.25 BenQQ) From the NY Post: After looking through less than 2% of its budget, Veterans Administration Secretary Doug Collins says he is stunned at the bloat he has discovered. "Collins has so far canceled hundreds of non-mission critical contracts to net $900 million in savings, and then saved another $14 million by ditching DEI employees and contracts," reports msn.com.
(3.21.25 BenQQ) While driving around today I heard over WREC 600 radio that Memphis was the most "moved out" city in the country. I was stopped cold, but not literally. Did I hear it correctly? I didn't know if it was a feed from Nashville that the network inexplicably also inserts into Memphis news? (Yes, it would be a good be a good dig from them.) I called the KABC news dept. but no answer/no message. I'm trying to get to the bottom of it. If you know anything relating to the story per se, please DM me.
(3.24.25 Update BenQQ) We finally found the source in the WREG 3 story citing the Tennessee State Data Center Boyd Center for Business and Economic Research that graphically showed projections for each county. Here are the graphs for Davidson, Hamilton and Shelby.
Hamilton County (Chattanooga)
Davidson County (Nashville):
Shelby County (Memphis):
These findings seem to be consistent with the Census Bureau as well as common experience of Memphians fed up with crime, poverty and a Democratic administration yielding similar results in other blue cities. This should be an emergency wakeup call to every voter in Memphis.
Cities are growing in Tennessee because people are moving here, among other reasons, to take advantage of its no state income tax. Businesses looking to start or relocate to Tennessee want to get good, steady employees as well as a growing customer base.
Yet, Memphis is behind the 8-ball. We believe nothing short of an electoral revolution, not unlike the recent national one, can reverse the course of the city--unless you want to wait till 2052, at which point the other two cities will be so far ahead few businesses would even consider Memphis.
(3.20.25 BenQQ) Today, President Trump will sign an executive order today disbanding the Department of Education (DOE).
His campaign website 2024 announced his position on education: “President Trump believes that we owe our children great schools that lead to great jobs, which will lead to an even greater country than we're living in right now. To that end, President Trump will work to ensure that atop priority of every school is to prepare students for jobs.”
Interestingly the 3 million+ teachers in public and private schools in the US make up a good 14:1 teacher student ratio. One would think that’s a well enough number to have the best education that is funded to the tune of $300+ billion annually. But something went wrong since Congress established the DOE in 1979 which has spent over $3 trillion since its start.
American students garner poor to very poor grades in reading and math. This bodes ill for the economy, jobs and defense, to name a few. Trump knows this.
Biden may have been aware of these abysmal education failures when he decided to prioritize DEI policies throughout the DOE and in schools across the nation. Predictably, DEI didn’t help improve education, but arguably worsened it. Test scores continues to average out below par.
Along comes Trump. He’d had enough. Just as a CEO would ax departments in his business, Trump axes departments and employees that are not benefiting the “company,” that is, the government that is hired by the people. The government is not an employment agency. 'CEO' Trump's policy: to cut poorly performing and duplicate programs and people across the board, as his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) continues to demonstrate.
Predicted: the numerous US Dept. of Education bureaucratic functions, often repetitive in other government offices, will be disbursed to the states and federal offices. We don’t know what “disburse” will actually look like, but there are indicators, for example(s): higher education financial aid programs could be moved to the Treasury; the Department of Justice could handle investigating discrimination and harassment complaints; Health and Human Services picks up programs for low-income school districts; The Census Bureau could replace the Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics and Institute Sciences. Etc.
MAGA is applauding spreading DOE functions to the states. It symbolizes why he was elected. With competition, states, may end up competing against each other regarding which are the best in schools and colleges in getting their students the best hire rates and salaries. As a result, local education ecosystems may become the most competitive organization entities that cities could promote for growth, lifestyle options and vitality.
By the same theory, could local universities like the University of Memphis become as respected as an ivy? In some respects, I bet it already is. Somewhere in Trump’s plan, I also bet, is the end of the huge grants to these colleges from which the elite pour out to govern and manage the commoners.
Are these among Trump’s long term goals? I've asked the people at Memphis Shelby County Schools (MSCS) what they expect from Trump's latest action. Correction: we don't see a public information office link on their website. Maybe someone could shoot it over to us?
(3.16.25 BenQQ) Washington DC Mayor Muriel Bowser declared it permanent, but It took about two years before she drilled it to bits and cast wherever they throw old slogans representing organizations that quickly got embarrassingly bad headlines alleging abuse of contributor money to the tune of millions that were said to go to personal homes of founders. Reportedly, Mayor Bowser desperately wanted to get on the good side of Trump in order to get administrative money for her failed Democratic administration. Her politically pandering pavement painting took up two blocks. What the city paid for this temporarily hot messaging is unknown.
The Memphis pavement painting only covers a crosswalk. (video below) Twelve other cities put up similarly themed displays, according to my search.
These pavement paintings commemorated Black Lives Matter. BLM was going high before the bad headlines spoiled the race-baiting hit parade that brought in millions of dollars from pandering celebrities, politicians and even average people, including black Americans. Police officers to athletes were taking a knee to apologize for their race's historic infractions.
You couldn’t create a better political atmosphere to collect big dollars for the great social injustice.
BLM Given the fact that it became a kind of weird 21st century social performance art in itself to demonstrate guilt from people who had nothing to be guilty about, ‘systemic racism,’ that is, racism based in law, had already long been eliminated.
Further, American society had expunged it from any part of its functioning-even to the point of imbalancing judicial, academic, government and corporate hiring standards all machined to respond to DEI-diversity, equity and inclusion.
Many of those entities then promoting DEI have now stopped doing so. A history: DEI was started in the 1960s, but as with all later social movements, it grew in the age of the internet where dissidents could get traction with 'Defund the Police’ and 'Hands Up! Don’t Shoot' even thou most slogans of the type have been discredited with facts from which the events were drawn.
So not surprisingly, the Memphis City Council in July 2020 declared "systemic racism" to be a public health crisis. As far as I know, (and anyone can correct me here, there is NO public record of anyone coming forward to complain he/she was a victim.)
But at the time of George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police in 2020 for which officer Derek Chauvin, whose appeals now have all failed, was found guilty of all charges, including second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, second-degree manslaughter that all resulted in a sentence of 22.5 years imprisonment. (The only other Minneapolis peace officer to be convicted of murder was Somali-American officer Mohamed Noor in the shooting of Justine Damond, a white woman.)
So here’s the point: current political overlays, I believe, always influence everything. Little wonder Chauvin was persecuted in the media at a time of social guilt over past racial wrongs which easily are exacerbated by Hollywood and the news by historic images and clever writers, which in turn ehhance sales and viewers (just sayin'). In other words, it was a blownup issue that was easy to exploit. However, countering all the emotion, police fatally shot 9 nine unarmed blacks and 19 unarmed whites in 2019, as reported by the Manhattan Insttitute. Yes, a far cry of the Democrats claim to police racism.
But wait. New times. New thinking. Perhaps.
The city government of Memphis, as far as I know, still has not sandblasted the Black Lives Matter signage it painted on the street in midtown. Are they still hanging on the myth that Trump is a racist, white people are evil and that dogs don’t go to heaven?
As other Tennessee cities flourish, Memphis has to experience people moving out rather than in.
What do you think?
(3.15.25 BenQQ) Despite their possibly related brethren elsewhere burning his vehicles, the anti-Elon Democrats may have decided to keep their powder dry today at noon. Nobody showed up.
There may have been one of 2 reasons for this:
At any rate I had expected to see valiant anti-fascist warriors parading about braving the bad weather in front the Tesla showroom on Germantown Blvd. (At other demonstrations I had taken great closeups of demonstrators and had given images to anyone who wanted to use them regardless if I editorialize against them. I don't charge for jpegs. Just please credit.) Maybe someone from the group will send me notes and the intrepid Memphispixnews.com will be there with questions.
(3.8.25 BenQQ) That’s the question that Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey has written to DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz. Baily calls for an investigation into whether some on President Biden’s staff might have set in motion far-left policies by exploiting Biden’s mental decline. For example, you might remember Biden’s incomprehensible offers to commute the death penalty sentences for violent criminals.
PJMedia surfaced the March 6 from a report of an investigation by the Heritage Foundation (a conservative think tank) Oversight Project alleging that Biden never personally signed any of his documents. There is a claim that Biden's signature provided by Autopen does not match his real one.
Some conservative writers had been saying all along that Biden was too cognitively deficient to handle the job. After a private meeting with President Biden, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson revealed Biden appeared “unaware of his own executive actions.
One example that Johnson shared was when he discussed with Biden his halting of liquefied natural gas exports to Europe. Despite it having enormous impacts on national security and the economy, Biden insisted he had not signed such an order, Johnson said in this article.
No doubt some Republicans would love to invalidate Biden’s administration at the same low level Democrats used lawfare against Trump. From the outset, let me say this will probably go nowhere because the ramifications of a lawsuit would be so massive that even Trump wouldn’t want it to get in the way of his projects. Too many headlines on Biden and less on Trump.
Yet its fascinating, no?
A reader sent this shot of memories past of Steve Cohen (D 9th) biting into what looks like a juicy breast from a congressional judicial hearing. Ok we remember it and are glad to revive the fond memories. What does this reveal? Steve Cohen think this influenced his constituency in and around Memphis. If you are in his service area, what about you?
(3/7/25 BemQQ) Amazing how much one day can reveal if you are watching the media. On the other hand it explains why people don’t as well. But I do for you.
Both Rep Steve Cohen (D 9th) and Dem CA Gov. Gavin Newsome said things that were either breathtakingly revealing or even funny.
First to our own Steve Cohen who was caught hurriedly heading to a vote in a wheelchair. A reporter asked him about his support of women’s sports and he fired back as he escaped into an elevator something about his support of “women’s shorts.” It was funny and spontaneous, a rarity amongst politicians. People appreciate brave humor, especially in the face of doom. Seriously, Cohen's comeback was a perfect retort to a reporter's ambush question:
Steve has become known for his eating chicken from a bucket in a hearing, though what the connection to the subject of the hearing was lost on everyone. It got a lot of coverage much to the embarrassment of Memphians. But you have to give him credit for hutzpah. Hey, he is a comedian already!
Then we have Democrats performing dances apparently to counter Trump's own campaign dance of a kind of slow twist with fist pumps. Call this his "“Fight, Fight, Fight” dance usually performed to raucously supportive crowds of tens of thousands. However the Democrats couldn't respond with a Biden dance of stumbles, falls and walking the wrong way so their dance went like this: (mostly-did you see any men) women legislators trying to move to some non-descript beat, usually looking awkward and seemingly wondering who the hell came up with this memo. It was humiliating, even perplexing. Why were they dancing? What is the victory they have to dance about? Does anything mean anything? However, Fox, as usual gave a balanced report:
Finally, Gavin Newsome in an effort to distance himself from last month's self induced floods and the brutal fact no (?) Democrat stood at Trump’s congressional speech earlier this week in support of women's sports (as well as sick kids and victims of violent crimes), said a man beating a woman in a game was “deeply unfair.” Yes, unfair enough to contribute to the many reasons why the Democrats got resoundingly booted from power.
The lessons from the visuals of this week: Democrats are lost in the wilderness, leaderless and bereft of ideas that resonate with the American people.
My suggestion: Democrats should hire some one line comedy writers and get training on when and how to deliver them. It would get coverage and some could actually be relevant to Trump's policies. When there's nothing else to say crack a joke and dance.
Review The Apprentice
by BenQQ
Director: Ali Abbasi
Writer: Gabriel Sherman
Some of the Cast:
Sebastian Stan as Donald Trump
Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn
Maria Bakalova as Ivana Trump
Martin Donovan as Fred Trump Sr
This wildly entertaining biopic starts on Donald Trump’s days as a real estate startup under the tutelage of Roy Cohn. The Apprentice leaves a lot of impressions, over which historians will argue.
When Donald Trump was but a young handsome lad full of himself just beginning to hobnob with the elite, he decided he would be king of New York City. His brash self confidence was on display for everybody to see and it fit the times: disco, drugs and decadence of the dazzling 70’s and 80’s. A great time to be alive if you were ambitious, had some money to start with, was single mindedly driven and lived in New York City. You could say he never lost that ambition and drive to not only be the best but, just as important, to be recognized for it, even at other’s expense.
If you are going to make a movie about a known character, that character mostly has to be either a saint or a villain. Complex doesn’t sell or at least sell big and Donald knows that. Hence his personality, hence the movie, but let’s continue.
Donald Trump is no saint. In fact, he comes with the vices of the average man, only made larger than life by his Shakespearean character flaws-mainly self-grandiosity and need for others to love him-that shows up, if not dominates, in his actions as president.
Historically, as it now turns out, that’s not a bad thing. His character, flaws and all, shows up exactly—some say providentially--when the country needed the “Trump Package” the most before it took one final nose dive under Democratic socialist quagmire.
The fact is, the country was so f5$#@!d up after years of Biden/Obama/Bush that nothing short of a Trumpeon character could begin to correct it—and at the time of this writing, it still hasn’t begun. If this generation of Democrats don’t win in the courts, most of Trump’s policies hopefully will hold.
Trump's response to the movie in October 2024 is a perfect example of the Trumpeon character:
“A FAKE and CLASSLESS Movie written about me, called, The Apprentice (Do they even have the right to use that name without approval?), will hopefully ‘bomb.’ It’s a cheap, defamatory, and politically disgusting hatchet job, put out right before the 2024 Presidential Election, to try and hurt the Greatest Political Movement in the History of our Country, ‘MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!’ My former wife, Ivana, was a kind and wonderful person, and I had a great relationship with her until the day she died. The writer of this pile of garbage, Gabe Sherman, a lowlife and talentless hack, who has long been widely discredited, knew that, but chose to ignore it. So sad that HUMAN SCUM, like the people involved in this hopefully unsuccessful enterprise, are allowed to say and do whatever they want in order to hurt a Political Movement, which is far bigger than any of us. MAGA2024!”
I had forgotten his hit TV Show was called The Apprentice where he coined the phrase “Your’re fired!” I was thinking that the movie was inferring Trump himself was the apprentice of Roy Cohn, the win-at-all-costs attorney who was said to have few ethical limits other than loyalty. However, it is loyalty the film says Trump violated in his relationship with Cohn.
The Apprentice portrays young Donald first repulsed by illegal corruption, though it soon seduced him. Cohn made it look so easy. Not without allegations of corruption, Cohn’s first legal win for Donald was defending him against housing discrimination charges from his tenants. (BTW, there is a scene where Donald is collecting rent. Its rich.)
Politically the movie makes Trump out to be somewhat apolitical at his start but Cohn’s strident anti-communist ideology melds into young Trump. It helps him become an Ayn Rand type figure that has little room for sympathy for his antagonist, which is always the loser. (BTW on a personal note, I recall seeing Roy Cohn not long before his death at a night club in Los Angeles in the mid-80's. He was standing above the crowd on a kind of deck looking thin and gaunt but well dressed.)
Yet, Donald was not without his vulnerabilities. He is distraught when his alcoholic brother dies in a hotel after refusing to let him stay in his home overnight. He was struck with grief but refused condolences even from his then first wife Ivana. His father does not even escape some of Donald’s judgement.
I don't know if Trump ever took any psychotherapy, but the movie does show him getting surgery from being bald and fat. The scene, if you hadn't gotten it by then, might as well have plastered a graphic up on the screen shouting: THE DONALD YOU SEE IS NOT THE DONALD YOU GET.
One thing for sure: Hollywood will never be finished with making Trump look as unsavory, displeasing and disturbing as ever. But some would say that’s not so hard to do. By the same token, an honest film about another two term president Barack (Barry) Hussein Obama would show manipulation of a low information electorate that would reach levels of cynicism that couldn't even be conceived in the mind of Donald Trump. I know my choice.
The Apprentice can be rented on Amazon Pay-Per-View and other streamers.
(3.5.25 BenQQ) It seems Democrats can’t stand the idea that the federal government is as morbidly obese as its bloated tax code. No one, not even the pencil pushers in the IRS, fully understand it, yet it feeds a fast growing multi-billion dollar tax preparation industry ($32.62 billion in 2024) that itself feeds on Americans forced to deal with the Internal Revenue Service
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Americans long ago were free of federal income taxes. Lincoln created the first agency to collect taxes to fund the Civil War. The government instituted a formal agency in 1913 to pay for the coming war as well as to “soak the rich.” No, it was never in the constitution.
The IRS recently said it would be cutting its 90,000 federal workforce by 50% through a mix of layoffs, attrition and incentivized buyouts according to people who are inside the tax collecting agency.
Add to that Trump’s External Revenue Service and the idea of creating a consumer “fair tax” (bill) and you just might see the disappearance of the federal tax collection behemoth that raids Americans' bank account and psychological stability on threat of legal force. All at the hands of IRS employees whom you pay who very well have personal animus toward you as a result of the media they consume as well as personal political inclinations.
In yesterday’saddress to congress, Trump touted no taxes on tips, overtime and social security but if you were looking to hear at least thebeginnings of a take down of the IRS, you were disappointed.Nevertheless, Trump and others have hacked away at the IRS with: his“External Revenue Service” to collect payments from governmentsand companies and the movement toward a consumer tax.
Nevertheless, we can expect the tax system to change as it always does. It is now recognized to be wildly inefficient and may even be beyond the grip of Trump and DOGE to set it right by the end of his term.
(3.3.25 BenQQ) In what will undoubtedly raise objections from both sides of the aisle, all cyber actions against Russia is now halted. Russia is a major actor of cyber acts against the US. Hegseth's order reportedly came before Friday's explosive meeting with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zalenskyy where he and Trump were both expected to sign a mineral rights agreement.
We expect Hegseth's order to be greeted with puzzlement from Trump supporters and evidence of old cozying up to the Russians from political opponents. Trump needs to make clear the reasons for the cyber stoppage against Russia or otherwise face political criticism even from MAGA supporters.
“How much more proof do we need that this administration is completely compromised?” said Brian Krebs, a cybercrime and security investigative journalist, wrote on infosec.exchange. “There is zero reason for the US to relax any offensive digital actions against Russia. If anything, we should be applying more.” (from Siliconangle.com)
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(3.2.25 BenQQ) After asking him what he thought about Elon Musk's recent email to federal workers asking them what they did in the last week, a personal associate who worked at the Internal Revenue Service said he would have responded they seldom got actual work done but watched CNN almost all the time during workday. We have not verified this in any way nor did we ask if this was the case most of the time or at times when work was light. The employee left the IRS about 10 years ago before the Covid-19 Virus. He received a federal buyout as an incentive to retire. We will inquire to the IRS Memphis. IRS workers and all others may respond here.
(2.28.25 BenQQ) Whether the display at the White House today was meant as a message to everybody going up against Trump as a “negotiator” or not, the message was certainly sent out to everybody under the sun: Don’tF***K with America. OK, that’s a good message, gets great comments in the conservative media. However, the ‘Negotiator in Chief” should know when to pull this act and when not to. I actually thought he had better discretion.
The “Don’t F***K with America” was the message from the right wing media as seen on VoiceAmerica, Fox, Newsmax, et al. Of course we know what the leftwing media will say—probably much of what I’m going to say below—but there’s one difference.
I supported--and still do--Trump. He, with all his flaws, is the still the only answer to the issues Biden and gang have put the country and the world into. I think this will probably work out with some kind of shabby deal, some land lost and a kind of security guarantee through a US-Ukraine mineral exchange. It won't be the best deal because Russia will be off the hook, probably for reparations and war crimes prosecution. It may also build up its military to attack other countries along its border.
But I am not the right wing media. I know Trump is a one way narrow thinker but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. This is his package. I voted for it along with the majority of the country.
But if you have few internal filters and believe everyone should love you—which seems to be a requirement of his—there’re going to be problems.
We saw that pysche play out today televised live from the White House. Here's the video:
Europe is going tohave to find a way after today.
The boys, Trump and Vance, ganged up on Zelenskyy like they were schoolyard bullies with help from the peanut crowd, one of whom, just had to insultingly ask of Zelenskyy why he wasn’t wearing a suit out of respect to the president. Translation: why wasn’t he groveling at the feet of Trump? Coming from the media, that question itself was a groveling display. Another point of fact: Zelinskyy wore the wartime garb he wears. Maybe Zelinskyy wanted to make a point: my country is at war in a fight for its life and if I fall so does Europe.
A better question from the peanut stands would have been: what about resolution of war crimes Russia has committed against the people of Ukraine for the past 3 years? Mass executions, torture of civilians, kidnapping of children who have yet to be returned to their parents and total destruction of property. All things committed by the Nazis as well and all conveniently ignored not only by the President but the media as well. The question is not in the chief negotiator’s narrative.
On top of all that: Trump gave the upper hand to Russia during the discussion. Anybody who watches the war from various reports on the internet can see the Russians are making excruciatingly slow progress. Its a stretch to say they are winning. They have squandered toward a million men and hundreds of thousands of vehicles, both of which are hard to replace. They are using WWll tactics and technology. They have to import foreign soldiers who are mangled on the battlefield by Ukrainian technology. They’ve lost air dominance, as well. The Russian people are nearing a point of rebellion against the war—an act of brazen bravery in the face of certain incarceration and disappearance. Putin is approaching a position that he either ends the war or ends his existence. Both would be preferable.
What Trump did today was an encouragement to Putin. He needed it.
As I’ve written before, Trump’s frame of reference is a CEO and the country is his company. That’s not a bad thing until you have issues like this. Other countries are at best friendly competitors and smaller countries are nothing more than pikers in a poke. I believe that’s how Trump sees Ukraine. Unfortunately, Zelenskyy had the historical misfortune to come begging at a time when Trump is on the warpath to reduce government and stop the spending.
Instead of a country that poses the opportunity to stop Russia from restoring its old Soviet boundaries, Trump sees Ukraine as a bankrupt small business across town that is not important to his big business—until of course the market is suddenly turned upside down.
How might Zelenskyy, after being tossed out of the White House unceremoniously, turn that market upside down? What if he were to go to Xi, or someone else, and make a deal about his minerals with China. After being insulted in public by the most powerful man in the world, I’d want to at least do something. That won't happen, but maybe watch for it.
So Trump’s posturing as a neutral negotiator is a real question at this point. He has assumed the role of objective arbiter where one party is a mass casualty perpetrator and the other party is the victim. Considering the perp, I doubt any deal short of arming the entirety of the countries on his border will be a lasting one.
BenQQ’s lesson of diplomacy: a great democratic power doesn’t need to bully a small democratic country, especially if it is and has been under attack by a dictatorship bent on taking it over. Trump raised his voice, interrupted, refused to listen and let others beat up on his guest in public as well. He had the opportunity to listen, shut the balls up and then retire to a private setting and sign the deal that would at least stop, as he always says he wants to, the carnage. But instead he opted for great television--and crowed about it.
One more thing: Trump talks like the fighting is some kind of climactic weather event. He wants to “stop the fighting” like he’d rather stop the rain. He, and everybody it seems in Trump’s camp, steadfastly refuses to acknowledge Putin started the war, continues it and has wasted the land and people of Ukraine. Zelenskyy has refused to surrender to Russian slavery. But Trump thinks the parties are equal in the situation. Somebody should tell him Russia is the aggressor—and will aggress east into Europe without the pain.
(BenQQ 1.20.25) Here are 30 policies and objectives specifically mentioned in President Donald J. Trump's inauguration speech this morning:
In another speech, Trump said he had made a deal with Tic Toc, the Chinese social media site, that the US government would own 50% of it in order for it to continue operations in the US.
(1.19.24 BenQQ) Announcing on X.com Donald Trump announced a new agency he has in mind: the External Revenue Service. Democrats have already started poo-pooing it because it will be funded by tariffs and other sources of income. Will he mention it in his inauguration tomorrow?
In fact, say the Dems, Trump's plan to eliminate the income tax is actually just his "silly rebranding" strategy to raise your taxes to benefit the rich.
Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., issued the following statement in response to Trump's idea: “No amount of silly rebranding will hide the fact that Trump is planning a multi-trillion-dollar tax hike on American families and small businesses to pay for another round of tax handouts to the rich.”
That was the entirety of his response, thus proving Democrats have ingrained opposition to relieving Americans from the tax system as we know it. He made no further content. No willingness to even consider the possibility of supporting the "ERS" on a trial basis. If ever there was cold feet of tax payers voting for Trump, Wyden in the not unusual Democratic disconnect, inadvertently warmed them up. Currently, Americans must submit their financials to any one of thousands of possibly biased IRS employees who demand compliance on penalty of imprisonment for not following a maze of IRS regulations so complex even tax professionals don't understand them. Trump is the first president in modern history to propose complete tax relief.
Trump's idea in fact was at least shown to be workable in American history. The US government raised money at the top of the twentieth century without an income tax until 1913. Personal income tax was started during the war and has since never left burdening Americans earning an income.
Unknown at least here is what the government does at time of war or other national emergencies. Possibly one hopes some form of a universal sales tax would apply then. The External Revenue Service must be passed by congress.